Page 575 - les-miserables

CHAPTER XIII

THE CATASTROPHE

The rout behind the Guard was melancholy.
The army yielded suddenly on all sides at once,—Hou-
gomont, La Haie-Sainte, Papelotte, Plancenoit. The cry
‘Treachery!’ was followed by a cry of ‘Save yourselves who
can!’ An army which is disbanding is like a thaw. All yields,
splits, cracks, floats, rolls, falls, jostles, hastens, is precipi-
tated. The disintegration is unprecedented. Ney borrows a
horse, leaps upon it, and without hat, cravat, or sword, plac-
es himself across the Brussels road, stopping both English
and French. He strives to detain the army, he recalls it to its
duty, he insults it, he clings to the rout. He is overwhelmed.
The soldiers fly from him, shouting, ‘Long live Marshal
Ney!’ Two of Durutte’s regiments go and come in affright
as though tossed back and forth between the swords of the
Uhlans and the fusillade of the brigades of Kempt, Best,
Pack, and Rylandt; the worst of hand-to-hand conflicts is
the defeat; friends kill each other in order to escape; squad-
rons and battalions break and disperse against each other,
like the tremendous foam of battle. Lobau at one extremity,
and Reille at the other, are drawn into the tide. In vain does

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